"I'd like to solve this diplomatically and I believe we can," Bush told the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in an August 14 interview, a transcript of which the White House released on Monday.

But "it's going to take a lot of persuasion by countries besides the United States to convince him," said Bush, who has staunchly resisted taking a bilateral approach to disarming Pyongyang.

North Korea is to meet the United States, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea in Beijing on August 27-29 for talks aimed at resolving the crisis, which started in October 2002.

That's when the United States accused Pyongyang of reneging on a 1994 bilateral nuclear accord by setting up a clandestine program based on enriched uranium.

North Korea, which says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against the United States, soon expelled UN nuclear inspectors and withdrew from the treaty.

It has since claimed to have reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods at its nuclear plant at Yongbyon.

"We believe he has got a warhead. We know he's got rockets. And we know he's a dangerous man. And that's why we take his threats seriously," said Bush. "He loves the idea of, you know, making people nervous and rattling sabres and getting the world all anxious.

"And my job is to tell others that, let's speak with one voice and convince this man that developing a nuclear weapon on the Korean Peninsula is not in his interests," said the US leader.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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